by K A Riley
It sounds silly in my own head given everything that’s happened, but part of me also feels protective of the little tidbit about my super-charged memory. After all, it’s Render’s secret as much as mine, and I don’t feel right betraying his trust. Heck, I don’t think we’d have made it anywhere close to this far without him. Like me, he seems to be getting smarter and more resourceful by the day. In a nearly lifeless world, he’s brought us back remnants of field mice and once led us to the carcass of a mule deer, but a black bear the size of an army jeep had already staked its claim, and we weren’t quite desperate or crazy enough to challenge it. With clicks and kraas! and even the occasional human-sounding holler, Render has alerted us to the presence of rogue, rabid wolves, which we’ve given a wide berth. He’s even given us advance notice about radical temperature fluctuations by screeching and shepherding us under trees or rocky outcroppings to get us out of the sun when the reddish rays of midday are burning their hottest.
Overall, it's been an exhausting slog, one foot in front of the other, as we rely on our wits and our will-power to keep pushing forward and to keep from going insane along the way.
For the past few days, Render has been leading us along the dried-up river bed. The steep banks on either side give us some protection from the heat. Sometimes the bed disappears completely, and we find ourselves tromping along through clusters of crusted gray reeds and over fields of jagged red rocks. Every once in a while, the river bed returns, and Render leads us to small pockets in the earth where brownish water gurgles in shallow pools. We drink when Render does, and we don’t when he doesn’t.
We keep trudging on, weighed down by knowledge and experience. When the parched ravine finally fades, we stumble upon yet another deserted highway, wide, overgrown with parasitic weeds, and sticky from the desert heat. Abandoned hydro-cell transports, burned nearly beyond recognition, sit like charred metal tombstones along the shoulders of the road. Deep craters pock-mark the highway in places where the pavement has been fused into glass by thermal plasma-bombs. Except for the eerie absence of other people, this is the world we witnessed from the viz-screens. It’s the world we thought we were being trained to save. It’s a depressing sight, and I find myself hoping for any sign of life. Right now, anything would do: a roving band of thugs, looters, a rogue militia, army deserters. Anything to reassure us that we aren’t the last people on earth.
As we continue our march, Cardyn does his best to keep our spirits up. He regales us with tales of our young lives back in the Valta. Of course, they’re stories we already know. After all, we lived them. But they’re nice to hear anyway.
His timing is uncanny. Just when I’m thinking I can’t take another step, just when I’m wondering if this next bend in the road is where I’ll finally need to sit down and surrender to this relentless emotional and physical fatigue, Cardyn’s voice rings out in the open expanse of the desolate highway.
His stories all start the same way: “Remember the time…?” and then finish with any number of old memories:
“…when Terk lifted that giant cross-beam off Spence’s leg and when Spence complained and called Terk a ‘big clumsy idiot,’ Terk dropped it on his other leg?”
Or “…when the Colson girls spent the whole day bragging about all those sacks of wild onions they’d gathered for Final Feast a few years back, and one of the Sixteens had to tell them it was actually Death Camas, and it was all poisonous?”
Or “…when Kress told that one Neo that if he didn’t start helping out with the Clean-up Crew she was going to have Render peck his lips off in the middle of the night?”
And just like that, Cardyn has us laughing, transported back to the Valta. Back to uncertain but safer times. Back to when all we had to worry about was survival, instead of survival and betrayal and the distinct possibility of being hunted down and executed like we saw happen to those thirteen boys and girls back in the clearing out behind the Processor. Despite the distraction of Cardyn’s stories, I can’t shake those images of the thirteen bodies, their heads sagging as blood pooled around them. We don’t know who they were or why they were butchered like that. They were kids. Probably Seventeens, like us. They could have been us if we hadn’t gotten out of there when we did. Now, every step I take reminds me that I’m a step farther away from a horrible tragedy that could have been. I keep reminding myself I’m alive. I survived when others didn’t. I escaped what could have been a terrible end.
It’s small comfort, though, since I’m also reminded about my friends who didn’t make it…and about how little I know about what’s to come.
As we push on, I look back to see that Rain is walking next to Brohn, listening absently to Cardyn, trying to stay positive by taking in his half-hearted promises that our safe haven is just over the next hill or around the next bend in the road. I feel little pangs of jealousy from time to time when I see Brohn and Rain together. I want to be the one walking with Brohn, talking about home as we try to keep each other’s spirits up. But Rain has a way about her, a kind of confidence and magnetism that draws people in. I can see why Brohn would feel strengthened around her. Besides, I try to tell myself, he’s not mine. The important thing is that we all support each other and that we survive to see another day. Petty jealousy seems like too trivial an emotion to focus on in times like these.
Somehow, I keep winding up in the lead with Manthy walking just a half-step behind me. Every once in a while, after I forget she’s still with us, I catch a glimpse of her shaggy-haired shadowy figure out of the corner of my eye. It’s like she’s decided that the back of the line isn’t for her anymore. Instead, she’s content to pad along at my side. We don’t talk, but it’s oddly comforting to know she’s there.
It used to be that Manthy consistently brought up the rear, but that’s Kella’s position now. Kella barely says a word to anyone anymore. Her tidy blond hair has become an unkempt tangle. Her smooth, flawless skin has grown rough from our journey. Her big blue eyes have gone a sad, sunken gray. She walks with her head low. Sometimes, she looks back the way we came, no doubt with nothing but Karmine on her mind. They were two of a kind. Gung-ho. High-energy. Heroic. Eager to finish our training so they could do their part to win our country back from the dreaded Eastern Order.
For Kella, all of that ambition died with Karmine. Cardyn tries to talk to her sometimes, but her eyes remain empty with no desire to be filled. She barely has any desire at all. She doesn’t eat or drink. Her already thin frame has gone nearly skeletal. Her ribs push through her shirt like brittle twigs under a pile of dry leaves. It’s like watching a slow suicide from the vantage point of a helpless onlooker.
I know she feels alone now. I try to tell her she’s not, that we’re still in this together, that everything will be okay. But even as I say it, the lies feel like acid in my mouth. I lost my family. Brohn lost Wisp. Kella has lost Karmine. We’ve all lost Terk, our home, and our innocent belief that we knew our enemy and understood the nature of the war raging around us.
At some point along the way, I stopped trying to reach out to Kella, not because I was giving up on her but because I was convinced she’d already given up on herself, and nothing I could say or do was going to bring her back.
“What’s that?” Cardyn asks, snapping me out of the trance I feel like I’ve been in for days now.
I put my hand over my eyes to shield them from the sun, and I follow to where Cardyn is pointing.
“Not sure.”
Brohn and Rain step up to either side of me. “What is it?” Brohn asks, his hand on my shoulder in a quiet gesture of intimacy.
“Look there.”
I point off into the distance with Brohn leaning down just above my arm to follow my finger with his eyes. Up ahead, the foothills to a range of mountains appear through a shimmering wall of heat rising up from the broiling highway.
“Well,” Rain sighs. “Should we head that way?”
“It’s just as good as any way,” I say. “It might just
be the safe haven we’ve been looking for.”
Cardyn squints in the direction of the distant hills. “Why do I get the feeling those might be famous last words?”
I assure him we’ll be fine and begin to lead us toward the small patches of green at the foot of the remote mountain range.
As we press on, we can just make out a thin column of smoke rising up from a cluster of trees about halfway up the nearest mountain. I think it must be an optical illusion or a mirage at first, like the image of an oasis that fills your heart and then crushes it when you rub your eyes, and it disappears. But the others see it, too.
Rain suggests we head toward it. “Could be others like us,” she says. “Runaways. Sixteens or even Seventeens who escaped like we did. People who can help.”
Urging caution, Cardyn warns it could be a trap. “Or the Eastern Order.”
“There is no Eastern Order, remember?” I remind him. “Our own government’s been lying to us for probably our entire lives. I need to know why. If there are people in those woods, they’re not the government. They’re probably on the run like us, which means they might have something to offer us other than torture and lies.”
Cardyn must sense the fury and determination in my voice because he doesn’t push back. Brohn says he agrees with me. Kella and Manthy don’t say anything.
“So I guess that means we go for it,” I say.
“It’s not exactly going to be easy getting over there,” Rain points out.
She’s right. In between us and the forest-speckled mountain is a blazing desert of deep fissures, razor-sharp rocks, and a massive expanse of hot red sand. It’s how I imagine Mars must look. Only this place is scorching hot instead of icy cold.
After consulting with the others, I send Render out on a scouting mission and move away from the group. Connecting my mind silently to the raven’s, I sit down on the hard ground and let the world in front of me go hazy white. Brohn and the others disappear, replaced by flashes of the charred earth far below, then by tangles of a half-dead forest, and finally by the column of smoke rising from the mountainside. Render’s memory and attention to detail are uncanny. His eyes and mind soak up visual information the way the dry earth soaks up rain. My eyes and mind don’t always line up perfectly with his, so I can’t sort through it all yet, but I’m learning.
He returns from his reconnaissance now, dropping down from the big looping circles he’s been making with his winged, glistening black body cutting through the blood-red sky. Everything he’s seen—plus his instincts and emotions—fills my mind in an overwhelming rush of sensation. The images are fuzzy, but the feelings are clear.
“There’s risk up ahead,” I tell the others. “There’s danger in the mountains on the other side of this desert. A dozen people over there know we’re here, and they’re preparing for us. It’s not a welcome. It’s an attack. An ambush.”
“Then maybe we shouldn’t…” Cardyn begins, but I stop him.
“But there’s also hope,” I say. “Render can sense it. I can, too.” I look at Brohn, who nods his head slightly in a gesture of understanding.
With Render gliding ahead and the others close behind, I step off the hot, sticky road into the forbidding desert. I head toward the slender plume of smoke snaking out above the distant foothills, leading our Conspiracy into the next unknown.
2
Thinking we may have finally stumbled upon the possibility of salvation, we step off the buckled and pock-marked highway and into an expansive red desert leading to an outcropping of trees and foothills to a mountain range on the far side. There’s smoke over there, which means people, and we’re prepared to take our chances with fellow runaways in the woods rather than risk getting dragged back to the Processor, a thought that haunts our memories like some fanged, demonic creature from a collective nightmare.
On the night we escaped, Granden—one of the men who trained us, lied to us, and may have been planning to kill us—pulled me aside as the soldiers from the Processor advanced. Before disappearing, he gave me one last instruction: “Follow Render.” So that’s exactly what I do. And for reasons I can’t explain, the other Seventeens follow me. I may be in the lead, but I’m no leader. I’m the kind of person who’ll jump in when I’m needed. I answer when called upon. But I’m not one of those brimming-with-confidence alpha types who delegates responsibility, barks out orders, and inspires the troops.
All this time, I’ve been trying to call on Brohn and Rain to help me with decisions. They’re the natural leaders, the ones overflowing with talent and confidence. Through the woods and all along the paths and highways, I asked them for advice. How far along this side road should we go? Which way should we turn at this crossroads? Should we cut through this wooded area or try to find a way around? Do these berries look edible? Should we stop to rest before it gets too dark? Is it even worth it to cross this desert to find out the source of that smoke? Or should we play it safe and keep to ourselves?
Every time, I’ve been greeted with doubt and deference.
“Whatever you think is best,” Rain always says.
“We trust you,” Brohn tells me with reassuring smiles.
Kella’s been too far gone in sorrow, too deep in her own head to be of any help. She and Karmine ended just as they were beginning. Manthy wouldn’t give me advice even if I pinned her down and tried to force it out of her. It’s just not her way.
Only Cardyn is willing or brave enough to chime in from time to time. But even his advice has been reduced to tepid, wishy-washy suggestions. Maybe we should do this or that. Or maybe not. Maybe we should go left. On the other hand, maybe right is better. It all ends the same way: “Whatever you think is best, Kress.”
Sigh. Here I am, in the lead with my fellow Seventeens—no, my friends—looking to me for guidance. So I follow Render, and they follow me.
As we march along, the thick, solid-packed sand and jagged rocks make for an exhausting trek. With Render gliding ahead, we weave and navigate our route down treacherous red embankments and around large columns of dusty red stones. Everything is hot to the touch. Even the air feels like fiery dust in my lungs. Brohn drags a hand over a series of spiky rocks and says they’re casualties of the war. “Nuclear fall-out’s my guess,” he says as he takes a whiff of the powdery red dirt on his fingertips. He gestures with a flick of his thumb back toward the way we came. “Same thing that took out those towns we passed. Maybe the boosted fission bombs we learned about in training? Microwave pulse-blasts?”
Rain’s not so sure. “From what I’ve read about radiation, we’d all be sick or dead by now.”
“It depends on the amount of radiation and how long we’ve been exposed,” I say. “That is, if this really is the result of nuclear fall-out at all.”
“Well,” Card chimes in, “something sure turned the world into a wasteland. Looks like someone put it in an oven and set it on char-broil. We know it wasn’t the Eastern Order. That means either our own government did this to itself or else there’s another enemy out there no one’s talking about.”
The thought of that sends a shiver through my body. The only thing worse than facing a deadly enemy is not knowing who the enemy is you’re about to face.
Having lived nearly our entire lives in the Valta, our knowledge of the world has been limited to viz-screens and to the last batches of paper books we were able to scrounge from our burned-out town. I have faint memories from when I was five years old when I lived back East with Micah and our parents. The memories are mostly just flashes of green from a wooded area behind our house and images of my father’s back as I watched him hunched over his white synth-steel worktable in his pristine, glass-walled lab up on the third floor. His office teemed with wide bands of soft white light, the kind where you can see tiny particles of dust dancing happily in the sunbeams. It felt like peace. It felt like a world brimming with life.
If that clean, bright, and verdant world has an opposite, I’m standing in it.
&nbs
p; There is some vegetation out here, mostly lethal-looking purple vines with long translucent spikes sticking out like the fangs of a snake, ready to kill us if the heat and exhaustion don’t bring us down first, that is. Otherwise, this is about as lifeless as it gets.
Our food is all but gone along with most of our water. The little bit of water we do have left in the clear aluminum bottle is brownish and filled with debris and ominous-looking cultures of microorganisms. Brohn figures we’ve got two days left. Three, tops. “After that,” he says, “we’re going to be in a bit of trouble.”
And the award for Understatement of the Year goes to…
Rain calls out for me to slow down, which I do. I look back, not realizing how far ahead I’ve gotten from my friends. Render waits, too, hopping up onto one of the smoother stones to preen the red dust from his black feathers. The heat is oppressive. Up until now, we’ve been able to avoid the worst of it by traveling in the morning and evening hours and winding our way through half-dead forests and through gullies that at least provided some cover from the afternoon sun.
I wipe the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve. When the others catch up, Rain says, “Thanks,” and I get us moving again.
What we need right now is to find someone out here, a friendly face to guide us in the right direction. Someone to help us to get home. We’ve been gone for…three or four months now? Five? It’s easy to lose track of time when you can barely keep track of yourself and your own sanity.
So we keep hiking along, one foot after the other.
I may be following Render, but I know perfectly well that technically, trudging through the desert is my call. I really hope I don’t get us all killed. When I ask half-jokingly how I got to be in charge, Rain puts a hand on my shoulder. “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em.”